THURSDAY: Food for Thought

“HUMANS ARE destroying their planet,” telepathed the Mentor, and her aura flashed a wide spectrum of electromagnetic energy. “This species is a menace. Look at how they abuse Earth: polluting the environment, generating gases that warm the climate, causing the extinction of plant and animal species, and using up natural resources. And how they treat each other: poverty, malnutrition, wars, terrorism. It’s time for us to eradicate them and create a new hominid that will be a better steward of planet Earth.”

The minds of the three Creators froze momentarily. Then they communicated with each other, shielding their thoughts from the Mentor.
“What is this?”

“She suddenly appears from the next dimension and wants to exterminate our humans?”

“She hasn’t even hinted that she was unsatisfied in our previous meeting. Although, many of the world’s ills have surfaced just in the 50 Earth years since we last met.”

If these celestial beings had bodies, they would be scratching their heads.

They formed a collective reply, “Shouldn’t we try to help them reverse the deterioration before we take such drastic action, Your Mentorship?”

“You’ve had plenty of time and opportunity to influence their behaviour.” The Mentor’s aura assaulted the Creators again. “Instead of foreseeing where their actions were heading, you have let them slide into this mess.”

“We’ve done our best to make suggestions to many individuals, but only a few have understood the importance of the situation. They’re trying to persuade others, as well as their governments, to take proper steps. Shouldn’t we give them more time? We would like to take direct action but you don’t allow us to interfere with their free will.”

“I think it’s hopeless,” said the Mentor. “Humankind is too self-centred, stubborn, and short-sighted. With greed as their main motivation, they’re too blind to see the planet won’t sustain them in a few generations.”

The Creators’ minds raced. They flashed several ideas among themselves without taking the time to think them through, and decided to say, “Should we steer an asteroid into the planet like we did 65 million years ago to eliminate the dinosaurs?”

“I’ve considered that idea. But there would probably be some survivors, such as the leaders of the large countries in their emergency shelters, and they’re the ones who’ve driven the Earth to its present state. Do those individuals have the qualities that we would want to perpetuate in the species? No. Besides, most of the animals would also perish, and we don’t want that to happen. The same would apply to other natural calamities. Could you suggest some other means of destruction?”

“A thought comes to mind,” said the Creators. “Some areas of the planet are lacking food and water, especially since the climate changes began. We could worsen the crop failures with insect swarms and more droughts.”

“The devastation would produce widespread suffering for too many years. What else can you think of?”

“What about an epidemic? The Black Death in the 14th century wiped out about one quarter of the world’s population, and the flu pandemic almost 100 years ago killed between 50 and 100 million. We could select a small group of individuals with the proper qualifications, and tweak the genes of our chosen ones to resist the virus or bacterium.”

“That’s a possibility,” said the Mentor. “I wonder, however, why are you suggesting we rebuild the species instead of creating a new one?”

“You may remember, Your Mentorship, that we designed and introduced many hominids over the past 5 million years. One thing we determined was that their psychology wasn’t completely stable, using the DNA on this planet. If we design a new species, it may be no better. We suggest a safer approach is to select the best candidates from the existing population.”

“I do recollect your many hominids, and have wondered why you tried so many times — about 20 as I recall — although I’ve never asked you the reasons. Maybe I should have confronted you with that issue.” The Mentor’s aura pounded the Creators again. “It’s almost as if you applied trial and error instead of careful analysis and design.”

The Creators had run out of ideas. They decided to appeal to the Mentor’s sense of efficiency. “Your Mentorship, the consequence of eradication is that the number of dead would be about 7 billion. We would have to destroy them rapidly. We couldn’t introduce a new species and have them coexist until the new eliminated the old as we have sometimes done in the past, for there are too many of them and they wouldn’t accept a competitor. Would 7 billion dead not be a terrible waste?”

The Mentor pondered their comment, and said, “Yes, you have an interesting thought. Confirm for me, what kind of major weapons do humans have now?”

“Weapons? They have atomic and hydrogen bombs; chemical munitions, biological toxins and infectious agents; manned aircraft and guided missiles; and artillery and tanks.”

“Previously, she forced us to eliminate most of our experimental animals in several mass extinctions over the past 500 million years, and insisted that each species of hominid die out.”

“She is so ruthless.”

“All right,” said the Mentor. “I have the go-ahead. The star Gamma Draconis is the home of beings who live peacefully, are stable psychologically, and manage their environment successfully. Their main challenge is that their planners are predicting a shortage of livestock in the near future. You’re correct with your comment that killing the humans would be wasteful. A good solution is to introduce the Draconians to Earth and have them use humans for food.”

“What?” exclaimed the Creators. “That’s outrageous.”

“I understand your reaction. You created humans and feel a sense of responsibility for them. You’re also too compassionate. I, however, look after the welfare of most of this arm of the galaxy and work with many Creators. If the human race isn’t living up to our standards, it must be removed, and as you pointed out, simply killing them is inefficient. What better way of using them than as food for a superior species?”

“We’re astounded.”

“I would expect so,” said the Mentor.

“What about the war that’s sure to break out between the Draconians and humans?”

“The Draconians have force fields to disable the electronics in any weapons within a considerable distance of their spaceships. And they have specialists with telepathic abilities who can calm opponents’ aggressive instincts. They can also identify the most dangerous people for elimination early in the campaign. It’s not a matter of conquering the planet, but rather controlling it. You will see: After the Draconians implement their measures, humans will stop their wars, reverse overpopulation, stamp out poverty and malnutrition, and change their usage of the planet from abuse to sustainable development.”

“And become food for the Draconians?”

“Yes, that too,” said the Mentor.

“What’ll be our role?”

“Almost the same as before. You’ll continue to suggest innovations to the Earthlings who are talented in the various fields of art and science, and try to influence them to be more kind to each other.”

“What about the Creators who’re responsible for the Draconians?”

“They’ll continue with their beings. If there’s any conflict between you and them, I’ll step in.”

“When will the invasion begin?” asked the Creators.

“In an Earth year or two, as soon as the Draconians organize an expeditionary force and travel to your planet. Do you have any other questions?”

“No.”

“Our meeting is finished,” said the Mentor and vanished.
The Creators exchanged thoughts:
“We’ve invested too much in the humans to let them be subjected to such a fate.”

“What if we warn them of the invasion and plant the ideas of some super weapons in the minds of the scientists?”

“But that path would lead to war with all its tragic consequences.”

“Let’s turn our thoughts in a different direction. If we can determine what compounds are lethal to the Draconians and identify which of those are harmless to the ecosystem on Earth, we could introduce those on our planet.”

“What a shock it’ll be to the Draconians to discover that humans are poisonous instead of delicious.”

Nancy’s Notes to Contributors

Attention CommuterLit Contributors

It's time to clean up the files on the site. To make way for further postings, our first two years of posts (2010-2011) have been deleted. That means some of the links on contributor pages are defunct. Please be patient as we delete those links over the next few weeks.

Recent posts

Latest Book Review Podcast: “Circe” by Madeline Miller

CommuterLit editor and publisher Nancy Kay Clark (left) has launched a book review podcast with her young adult son Nathan Bennet (right), called with radical clarity, Mom and Son Book Reviews. As they are both great fans of sci fi and speculative fiction, they concentrate on reviewing novels, short-story collections and graphic novels, both new and not-so-new, in those genres.